Charlaine Harris: Death's Excellent Vacation

Perhaps he delayed the trip simply because he’d never gone anywhere without at least a few other O’Reillys. He’d tried to suggest to his parents that they make a family pilgrimage back to Ireland, but they always laughed and asked why he’d want to do that, when America had been so good to them all.

“We were driven out of Ireland,” his mother, Eileen, reminded him. “No one wanted us there. We were starving and forced to work for nothing.”

“That we were,” his father, Michael, nodded sagely over his briar pipe. “Here we’ve made our own Ireland, one that no one can invade. I wouldn’t go back there for all the gold in the world.”

Eileen gave him a sharp glance of warning that Pat didn’t notice.

“But you’ve never been there, either of you,” he whined. “Nor have your parents or anyone in the family. I just want to see the auld sod. I want to find my roots!”

“Don’t be a muggins!” His dad cuffed him gently. “You don’t need to look for your roots. The trees are all around you.”

Pat didn’t ask again, but he never stopped dreaming.

ONE day in spring, Pat came home from a late shift, eager for the porter stew his mother usually left for him to warm up. Instead of a solitary dinner and a beer, he found the house full to the rafters with cousins, uncles, aunts, and other assorted O’Reilly attachments. No one said a word, a miracle akin to the Second Coming. There was only one reason Pat could imagine for such solemnity.

“Who died?” he asked.

His mother stood slowly. In her hands she gripped a large, bright green envelope, edged with gold. Pat noticed right away that it hadn’t gone through the post. There was no stamp, only a pristine blob of sealing wax. It didn’t look like a death notice. The gold seemed to shimmer like the Cuyahoga River in flames.

Still no one spoke. This unnerved Patrick most. Normally a family gathering would have put a henhouse to shame, with all the squawks, shouts, bursts of laughter, wails of infants, and, of course, the firmly stated opinions that eventually would lead to blows.

“Mom?” he asked warily.

At last she broke the silence. “It’s come,” she quavered, clutching the envelope to her chest. “We haven’t been asked in fifty years, not since my granddad’s time. I thought they’d forgotten all about us.”

She searched in her pocket for a tissue, too overwhelmed to continue. Her sister, Teresa, took over.

“It’s the invitation to the summer gathering,” she told Patrick. “Only a thousand are so honored to be asked, and it happens only once every ten years.”

“Imagine that,” Pat’s father murmured. “Out of all those millions of O’Reillys. And, when you add us up, that’s sixty-odd people right here. I thought we were never invited because they wouldn’t ask so many of us. Who’d have ever thought it?”

Patrick was tired, hungry, and out of patience. “Will one of you either tell me what’s going on or else let me get to the kitchen for my stew?”

“It’s Ireland!” Aunt Teresa looked at Pat as if he were dense. “We’re all going to the Beltane Gathering, the O’Reilly fine reunion. Now, young man, you’ll finally see just how deep your roots go.”

Then the storm broke and everyone began to talk at once.

Patrick paid no attention to the babble around him. Ireland! He couldn’t take it in. After all the years of denying any interest in it, suddenly everyone was acting as if they’d been given the key to Heaven. Of course, that had always been Pat’s attitude, but he was astounded to find that others had been harboring the same longing.

The family immediately passed from chaos to high-gear efficiency. Dentist appointments were canceled, weddings postponed, mail stopped. The post office proved a problem, since their branch was almost totally staffed by O’Reillys or their in-laws. Pat was amazed that his father managed to get them all vacation time at once.

“How did you do it, Dad?”

Michael winked and tapped his nose. “I guess there’s a bit of the old craft still in me.” He gave Patrick a conspiratorial grin.

Pat had no idea what his dad meant. Many of the things going on in those weeks before the journey bewildered him. The clothes his mother and the other women were packing came from trunks in the back of their closets. The bright colors and wild patterns were startling to him. He’d never seen any of them in anything but jeans or tailored dresses for church and parties. The men were equally odd, packing briar pipes and gnarled walking sticks that had also appeared in the depths of the storerooms.

As the preparations grew more frantic, his confusion became tinged with a sense of dread that made no sense to him, either. He tried to shake it. This was his life’s dream. He didn’t want it spoiled by irrational worries. But the behavior of his elders gave him a sense that he was walking blindfolded on a staircase with no railing.

“There’s something off about this. They’re keeping secrets,” he complained to his cousin Jerry. “The aunts and uncles, my mom and dad. When I come in, they all stop talking. If the phone rings when I’m home, they ask the caller to ring them later. My parents argue in whispers after they go to bed.”

“Don’t be daft,” Jerry grinned. “You always did think the sun shone out your ass. They aren’t keeping anything from you. There hasn’t been a secret in this family since Aunt Kate ran off with the milkman. And we found that one out eventually.”

“I never believed she’d decided to join the Carmelites and take a vow of silence.” Pat was momentarily diverted from his worry. “Aunt Kate even talked in her sleep.”

“So, how do you think all of them together could be hiding some great, dark secret?” Jerry shook his head. “We need to celebrate, not mope about. After over a hundred years, we’re going home to Ireland! The first thing I’m going to do is have a proper draft Guinness. What about you?”

Pat allowed his cousin to ramble on but couldn’t escape the belief that his parents’ generation was in a turmoil about the upcoming trip. They were all thrilled and excited, definitely. But there was an undercurrent in their conversations that made him nervous. Something about the gathering, or Gathering, was putting them all on edge.

Eileen had no patience with his prodding.

“We told you,” she snapped when he’d been at her about it all during dinner. “It’s a sort of family reunion.”

“We have more family?” Patrick was aghast at the thought. “I suppose O’Reilly is a common name. So what could be so awful about that? Why are you all so jumpy? Is there something wrong with them?”

“Of course not!” She thumped another serving of potatoes onto his plate. “I’ve never met them, but I’ve never heard anything bad about them, either.”

“Then why haven’t I ever heard anything about them at all?” Patrick pushed the plate away. He knew that refusing food was guaranteed to get his mother’s attention, and her goat.

Eileen’s lips tightened to a thin line. She took a deep breath before answering.

“You’re hearing about them now,” she said in a dangerously quiet voice. Then she softened. “I’d tell you more, my darling, but the others think it best if you wait until we get there. You’ll understand then.”

She got up and went to the kitchen for more gravy, but Patrick was sure he heard her mutter, “I hope.”

ON May twenty-fifth, the day of the flight, the O’Reillys met in the boarding area at the airport. Patrick had never seen his entire family all in one place outside someone’s home or in church. It mortified him to realize what a loud, uncouth bunch they were. The children were running around, squealing with excitement, and Cousin Jerry was egging them on. The others were all hugging and greeting as if they hadn’t all been seeing one another every day for most of their lives. His cousin Liz had dyed her black hair a neon green in honor of the occasion. Pat tried to edge away from them, to pretend he was just another businessman for whom a trip across the Atlantic was nothing special.